I am sorry to hear about your lack progress, you are just unlucky, I searched a few places last year not dealers though, and the quality varied from great to useless, I even had one where the rear floor pan was wet and also the rad cap cracked!!!! I steered clear as for the bodywork well, mine is a nov 2004 3.od sport titanium silver with black leather, no sat nav though 29k on the clock so wear and tear was no existent, and bodywork was flawless(I soon changed that) I got the check brake lining too but had the seller attend to this, it is a case of the sensors not being replaced when the pads get changed…the pads on mine were fine and the seller sorted it…one point that does annoy me is that if you are NOT over 6ft tall and you slide onto the sit rather than sit down onto it, the leather on the outer edge will wear, I have seen many x5’s here with beige interior and it wears badly, changes colour to a blue, so go for the dark interior if you fine an e53 in good enough condition. As for lag, mine doesn’t have it, anyone who has driven it is gobsmacked, for a 2.5 tonne beast it goes! It looks better than a Q7 and the touareg (looks great) is cumbersome, cayenne was too thirsty and pricey so I went for the X5… tell ya what though there is a hummer looking Honda on the roads now that I love the look of, it is a bit boxy but looks good http://upload.moldova.org/auto/Honda...rossroad_1.jpg but I shouldn’t be promoting the competition on x5 world, last night I washed and waxed the x5 and was happy with it…..